


Before All That Passed

by mz_valkyrie



Series: Reap What You Sow [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alpha Slade, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Oliver, Omega Verse, Pheromones, Prequel, Scenting, Side Story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 06:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1734860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mz_valkyrie/pseuds/mz_valkyrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the lies, before the hatred, before the mistakes and misunderstandings that would eventually drive Slade and Oliver apart from one another, there were the "mistakes" that possibly pushed and kept them together in the first place.</p><p>Reap What You Sow Prequel/Side Story.</p><p>Discontinued. Refer to Reap What You Sow Chapter 14.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before All That Passed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyPaige](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyPaige/gifts).



> Sorry for this not being a _Reap What You Sow update_ , for which I’m trudging along slowly with. Not sure wheatear to continue with it or not but feel free to tell me what you think.
> 
> Ended up coming up with this, a prequel-side-story of sorts to _Reap What You Sow_ , which will function better if you’ve read the former but can stand on its own or act as an introduction to the ‘verse. Hopefully, this is the last of the flashbacks out of the way for that series.
> 
> This will be a two-parter and the second part of which will be posted when it’s done.

Oliver’s running.

Like always, it starts, and he’s running. He can’t even remember why he’s doing so but only knows he can’t stop the sprint he’s broken into. _Can’t stop, never stop_. It’s not even because he’ll die if they catch up to him—was he ever actually being chased? He _won’t_. He won’t die, they won’t kill him, it’ll be much worse than that.

He’ll die a slow, miserable death from his own humiliation if they catch him.

 _Keep going, keep going_.

He doesn’t know where he’s going or if he’s anywhere near _there_ yet but only the prospect of what will happen to him should he stop moving motivates him to keep moving forward. Keep bolting forwards through the branches lacerating his face—and across the wrists he uses to try and shield himself with—for the promise of a possible freedom that Yao Fei spoke of only in hushed tones and in those moments would glance at him, as if thinking the idea was surely a lost cause.

Lost cause, or no lost cause, anything was better than living behind a rock in a cave like Oliver had done for the past half a year. Even a rickety leftover plane, apparently, sounded better. The former Yao Fei had spoken of, though he could see nothing of the like in sight, shrub covering seemingly everything in front and behind of him.

He’s not even sure if he’s still being chased after, or if ducking into the forest to lose his unwanted followers, had netted him safety again but potentially gotten him lost in the process.

Lian Yu was hard enough to navigate as it is, having most of his view of the island restricted to just the inside of some rock walls, but was made more so difficult  when Oliver didn’t have the luxury to actually _look_ where he was going. Instead just scrambling over tree roots, mounds of dirt and uneven terrains with the hopes that he’d end up… wherever the place he needed to be at was.

Not sure if he’s still being trailed after, or if Fyer’s soldiers even noticed and chased after him in the first place, Oliver has to reluctantly come to a staggering walk when his lungs continually flare up with stitches. Not giving him breaks in-between breaths to actually find any and he can feel himself grow light-headed from the lack thereof, walk pacing to a slow crawl.

His neck aches from sleeping awkwardly and on the ground for so many months, whereas right now he’d relish even the sofa back home. Or really anything that wasn’t a rock. Hopefully this guy Yao Fei spoke of had the decency to offer him a make-shift pillow or something otherwise Oliver’s sure his head might just fall off.

If he can actually find this plane though as he kicks along dirt with his feet not really looking where he’s going, using his hands to try and soothe the stiches splitting open his ribs.

Like it’s a plane, or what’s left of one, how hard could it be to find?

Oliver’s heart jumps into his mouth as he feels his foot catch on something in front of him. His first instinct being to drop his arms and try to collapse into his fall but his reflexes are too slow and he’s still stumbling forward trying to right his footing. Until, of course, he trips over again and this time falls forward and down.

With his arms strung out in front of himself quickly enough, he manages to avoid falling straight onto his face but still groans when his chest hits the hard ground.

He can feel and move everything through, twitching the muscles in his toes and fingers, so hopefully the pain he’s feeling can’t be attributed to anything being broken. He doesn’t think he’s broken anything before and wouldn’t be sure what to do if he actually did, especially when he’s not in a position when he can ring for an ambulance and scream for a medic.

Heaving himself backwards onto his hands and knees, Oliver notices he’s fallen on an awkward angle. Down a small slope as he’s still disoriented as to where he is but when he looks up he’s not surrounded by forest anymore.

He looks to be in a large clearing though still surrounded by flora and the same nondescript trees that were everywhere. Being able to see the sun again, not obscured by an overhead canopy of leaves, gives him the idea it’s likely early afternoon.

Coughing as he elevates himself completely out of the dirt, Oliver wipes dust away from his face before he feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

Something’s not right, and with that thought he drops himself downwards so he lands on his back feeling the threat of an attack he wants to avoid. He can feel his insides spasm, telling him to run, attack, do _something_ , not just flinch up like a sitting duck waiting to die. But his greatest instinct is to do just that as he feels something hard poke against his collarbone.

Oliver snaps his eyes open he didn’t remember ever shutting and then immediately tries to scramble backwards at the cold steel poking around just under his nose. His back quickly hits the slope behind him _still_ there, the sharp metal following him and he nearly wants to try and slap the sword—it’s a sword, who has a sword!—away from himself before it’s being drawn over his throat again.

He inhales sharply, like he’s going to start hyperventilating but also to feel the blade to the _left_ of his neck and then goes to clamber outwards and to the right. Knowing he has no possible chance of defending himself with only his measly hands and feet and that running is his only chance at survival. That attempt is quickly thwarted by the boot coming down to rest on the other side of his face.

His chest contracts and Oliver’s sure he isn’t able to breathe for a moment there, kinking his neck and glancing upwards involuntarily to perhaps give his potential murderer the impression he doesn’t have to kill him but then realizes that’s _worse._ Because today’s threat for him to possibly get murdered at the hands of is an Alpha—how did he not notice that before— it’s always an Alpha.

Just how many Alphas were there on this goddamn island!

Oliver wants to whimper for his life, to just be let go even though that’s the remainder of his small sliver of dignity gone, but his heart is too busy pounding away in his throat and all he can hear is blood rushing through his ears. Staring into the dark—near on black—eyes of this Alpha male who’s got him pinned like prey and shows no sign of letting him up, looming over top of him.

The man inhales, then exhales deeply, like an Alpha sizing up the threat of another potential Alpha. Once, twice, then too many times for Oliver to be comfortable with as he’s not an Alpha, not even a Beta. He’s an Omega and he knows what happens to Omegas like him around uncivil Alphas.

Even in the city, he’s tensed up and been wary about what Alphas have been known to do to Unbonded Omegas, has been that way inclined since his father hammered the thought into him once his true dynamic came to light.

_Please, don’t know I’m an Omega._

Oliver mentally begs that he won’t get found out, is sure he’d much rather die instead then think of the potential consequences that could befall him from an Alpha finding out what he really is. Unbonded too, he wants to guess, as he can pick out no other scent mingled with the older Alpha’s, so that means only moral obligation is holding him back from just completely ravaging Oliver.

Yao Fei didn’t count in that regard—as an Alpha that Oliver found threatening—though he did in the beginning. Maybe he was just too old, too prude, had a mate somewhere that Oliver didn’t seem to be able to pick up a scent of for the life of on him, or god forbidden, was actually restrained but Yao Fei was always eerily controlled for an Alpha.

Was even the one that introduced Oliver in the first place to the idea that he could mask his scent and masquerade as Beta.

Not that he hadn’t done so before in the past and probably still would if he _ever_ got off this island and got a chance to go home. This was all with the aid of Beta-scented colognes though, heat suppressants, and with the confidence and swagger of a would-be Alpha. The last of which has all been drained out of him since he’s hit rock bottom and the former, he’ll likely never get access to on this prehistoric island.

His only hope is that the makeshift concealment of his dynamic that Yao Fei taught him how to do stuck and that he’s managed to successfully pull it off again, when it counts the most. The older Alpha didn’t exactly give him many tips on how to make the thing _work_ , instead being his vague Chinese self as usual, but if Oliver couldn’t scent himself for what he really was, it was likely no one else could either.

Which was a _really_ helpful guideline to go off considering Oliver’s never gone around scenting himself and _if_ and when he did, it was probably to just receive a nose-full of the Beta spray he’d become so accustomed to wearing.

Yao Fei made out that apparently Omegas had a better sense of smell than Alphas or Betas did, because that’s how they choose their mates or something. By wheatear they like their scent.

Betas don’t really have a scent, so the more you smell like nothing or not something that would typically be attributed to an Omega, the more likely you were to pass off as a Beta. If it looks like a Beta, smells like a Beta, then it is a Beta. Oliver didn’t really have a lot of experience pulling off the former without the aid of the modern world luxuries but what he did know was he had stay filthy.

Or as disgusting as he could make himself without wanting to almost puke on the spot.

Which for him meant that he would just smear muck and grime over his clothes, in what he guessed looked to be inconspicuous, and then would reluctantly smother dirt around his neck and collar. Clog his scent glands, the main ones of which were located around the neck, hence why mates would neck one another there.

That way, even if Oliver couldn’t refrain from dousing himself under water to clean himself—none of which he’s actually come across and been able to bath himself at the time—, there was a chance that his pores would remain clogged and he wouldn’t produce a scent, or at least a very minimal one.

That was the plan right now as Oliver remains immobile on the ground, frozen with fear and silent despite how scared he was having a sword poking a hole into his shirt. He swallows, feeling his mouth grow dry as he waits for what the Alpha will do to him in agitation. After what feels like an eternity the man finally looks at him, blinks, and then speaks.

“What are you doing out here you silly little Omega?” the Alpha spits and Oliver about wants to run and hide.

_Lie, you idiot!_

Oliver can feel his heart speed up in his chest and it takes all of his washed-out confidence built on walking over Alphas in the past to even want to try and lie to this one in front of him.

“Who said I was an Omega?” Oliver’s voice comes out practically a squeak and he’s already regretting the stupidity that’s come out of his mouth.

Possibly the worst attempt at lying he’s made in his life and even the Alpha looks at him like he’s gullible.

“I did. And either you are or you’re the most pathetic Beta I’ve ever seen,” the man’s accent comes out harsh and grating though Oliver is pleased with the slightly less accusatory tone to his voice.

At least the guy seems reasonable too though he does still have a giant blade jabbing into his torso that doesn’t seem to be moving.

_That’s right, I’m just a pathetic Beta._

Nothing special and certainly nothing an Alpha would want, so why not let him go?

“So, you’ll let me go right?” Oliver probes, hoping that’s the right decision if he wants to stay alive.

He’s on the ground, staring up at an Alpha who’s possibly managed to weed him out as an Omega, appearing as vulnerable as he was and just hoping for the best outcome from there seemed his only option.

“Nope. Because as pathetic and useless you look, now that you have my location, I’m going to have to kill you.”

“What! No wait, please,” Oliver can’t help but burst out with at the idea that he needs to die and wouldn’t have ceased with his sudden shouting had the Alpha not poked his sword so sharply into his chest.

Oliver hisses but the lack of air in his chest makes it hard to do so. He’s trying to scramble backwards up the slope behind him but his stamina’s already been exhausted from all the running he’d earlier. He’s going to die, he doesn’t want to die. He’d rather beg for his life than throw away this chance at freedom that Yao Fei’s given him. Might have even throw away his life for Oliver’s own.

“I won’t say anything I swear, I’m not going to say—”

He’s cut off and Oliver coughs, almost certain he’s got to be bleeding from all the stabbing in his chest. If he is, he doesn’t feel it though as his whole body’s only gripped by anxiety and he can’t get his eyes to sit still in their sockets. Looking only for a possible escape, a way out, how can he get out of this?

He wonders if he screams if anybody will hear him, if anybody will care though silences himself before he can make a sound when he notices _it_. He can only just see it if he really kinks his head to one side, credit to the Alpha jabbing a sword around his face and him trying to avoid getting butchered by it. It’s nestled in there by the trees, canopies of leaves growing into it and through the holes in its wreckage. It’s so big, Oliver only wishes he notices it early.

That’s it. That’s the plane!

Dammit, and that means this Alpha is…

“Wait, wait, wait. Yao Fei sent me here, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't so you could kill me.”

 _Or do anything else to me_ , were his unspoken words.

His voice coming out barely above a whisper and Oliver finally affords himself the luxury to cough and heave in deep breaths of air when the Alpha retracts his sword away from him.

Oh my god, oh my god.

Does he believe him?

“Who’s Yao Fei?” the Alpha interrogates, not moving away from him but at least dropping his sword though not putting it away.

No, please. What is he supposed to say!

“The Chinese Alpha!”

Oliver quickly gathers himself to his feet when the Alpha looks to be backing off him for a second, hopefully accepting his answer as he almost just wants to high tail it out of here at this point. Regardless of wheatear or not this was the person Yao Fei actually intended for him to come see.

Why did Yao Fei forget to mention the all too important detail that this guy was an Alpha? He knows he’s not comfortable with Alphas, or at least, not here on this island, he isn’t.

“There are lots of Chinese Alphas,” and with that the Alpha flicks his sword through the air as to emphasise the point of Oliver not trying to lie to him.

“The one on the island then! He told me to come to your plane.”

Oliver hears the distinct shriek in his voice and hopes it doesn’t betray how nervous he is even with the added sarcasm. He might still have a chance of running if he doesn’t let this Alpha close the gap in distance between them anymore.

Stepping backwards, uneasy, he still contemplates running until the Alpha sheathes his blade into the scabbard on his back and Oliver tenses up not sure what to expect.

“Yao Fei sent you?”

“He gave me directions to—” Oliver glances away from the other’s gaze for a moment realizing this is the point he should run at, “—your plane.”

He’s not running, why isn’t he running!

“Yao Fei sends me a pathetic Beta, lovely. What am I supposed to do with you?”

“Hey, I’m not pathetic,” Oliver defends himself with though realizes after he says that, the Alpha isn’t calling him out as being an Omega anymore, so he’s got that going for him.

At least Yao Fei did one thing right by him and taught him how to properly conceal himself if he was just going to be sent off to another, less hospitable, Alpha at the end of the day.

He’s still not confident in his decision to not run though as his feet stay rooted to the spot even as the Alpha paces towards him.

“We’ll see how pathetic you are once I’m done with you.”

Xxxxxxxx

Slade was… okay for an Alpha. At least for one that didn’t know he was an Omega.

He was harsher than Yao Fei but didn’t have the ego he was used to seeing on city Alphas like Tommy either. Instead, any charisma the older Alpha might have had seemed to have been replaced by brute mentality.

So while Oliver was not fearing getting the jump from Slade, he was fretting the moments when the older man would drag him from resting and pummel him into the ground in what he deduced was ‘training’.

Obviously their definitions on the subject were not one in the same and even though not decidedly uncomfortable around Slade, Oliver still tried to make himself scarce whenever possible. Meaning, not avoiding the other but also not making an effort to hang around him either for the fear his secret might get out.

Slade was admittedly better company than Yao Fei was, not so damn quiet, and if he didn’t actively beat the crap out of him, he might have even said they were friends. The Alpha still teased and gave him hell outside of beating the crap out of him though.

Like just when he’d look at Laurel’s picture the Alpha would pick fun at him, like he was missing his Omega or something when in reality he’d say he made a failed attempt at breaking up with her.

They could never really work out, not when he couldn’t give her children and nor her him. She might not have known the truth about him either but if she did, Oliver’s sure she’d see him as the inferior male and he wouldn’t be able to hold her attention any longer than he already had.

His father and her own weren’t very approving of their relationship to begin with, though know that his dad’s… out of the picture, he’s still not sure if and when he does ever return to society he’d be comfortable with the idea of telling people that he isn’t really a Beta.

That idea is just about completely squashed out him when he has such a threatening Alpha like Slade around him constantly, as of late.

He’s had the opportunity to wash himself, in the surprisingly clear, lakes on the island over the days he’s been staying with the Alpha though reluctantly declined every time. Until at the latest opportunity to do so he weakened at the prospect of washing the layers of grime and dirt off himself to be able to feel slightly more clean again.

Only to go and paste more gunk on himself after he got out of the springs. Because when sharing a living space of about eight damn metres—though Oliver likes to think of it as more half-and-half—with an Alpha did not make him at all confident in trying to play the part of not-an-Omega. He’s certain Slade’s not Bonded either, even though the Alpha has got to be early-to-mid-thirties.

Albeit trusting the other somewhat too, because he kind of has to for the purposes of survival, Oliver’s not sure wheatear to think Slade could turn out to be another Yao Fei, or turn out on the other side of the spectrum should he get sloppy and accidently reveal his true colours.

That uneasy established peace couldn’t last forever though, and all too soon the days counting down to when they were supposed to make their escape of the island were fast approaching. Those ten days that Slade had to turn him into something useful to help take the airfield dwindled down a week and then there were only three days leftover. Less if Oliver actually wanted to consider resting and if Slade would actuallygrant him the liberty to do so.

On the forth dawn from now they were supposed to make for the airstrip and take the incoming plane, but on the first dusk, that evening, something came up.

It came on so sudden and seemed so irrelevant for a time that Oliver had forgot it even existed, that was until he’s doubled over, crippled outside the fuselage of the plane. Wondering how he could ever forget when he’s rudely disturbed, after another particularly harsh training regiment, by a sharp cramp in his stomach like a knife slicing open his stomach.

This was the last thing he needed, just when things looked to be going so well!

At first Oliver thought he might be able to attribute the pain, low and unsettling in his stomach, to how many truly gut-wrenching blows Slade had dealt him over the past days. Yet the aching didn’t seem to ebb away over the time that Slade allowed him away from training to lick his wounds and carry out other tasks he deemed menial—like making a fire from kindling or lighting a spark to wood from rocks.

The pain started small and seemingly insignificant in the morning after the first daily round of Oliver getting his hide handed to him. The day went on though and albeit sure his pain tolerance had gotten slightly greater over the days of Slade damn near killing him, if anything the discomfort overtaking him seemed to have only gotten worse and that wasn’t him just complaining.

Not like muscular pain at all, more internalised and seemed to have spread from just twisting up his innards to making him feel thoroughly sick, feverish from what he thought originally could have just been a fluke. A flu or some other sickness he’d come down with, that he should probably tell Slade about even if the Alpha would probably just look at him like he was pitiful.

Though when the cramps began to come together too consistently and frequently for his liking, Oliver quickly clued into what was wrong and scrambled out from the plane from where he was previously murmuring small coos of pain and irritation on his cot, watching the sun go down overhead.

It was just after dusk at this point, which he knows from Yao Fei teaching him how to somewhat determine the time on the island by the sun’s positioning as well as how it would differ between the seasons.

Right now it’s completely gone, long since shrouded behind the treetops and having slipped out of sight. The sun setting earlier and earlier these past days he’s actually been out to see it and not cooped up in Yao Fei’s cave excuse of a living quarters.

Yao Fei… he’d sent him all the way out here into the custody of another Alpha, which is just great. Yao Fei could have at least said something, y’know before he went and theoretically fed him to the wolves.

Slade was thankfully out right now, checking traps and gathering animal carcasses to prepare their next meals, which he did dawn and dusk. Meaning it wouldn’t be long before the Alpha returned and Oliver didn’t want to be there for when he did.

Although it’s now winter—The Gambit having gone down in mid-Summer and a little over six months having passed since then—Slade seemed well-adapted to how much shorter the days were.

His whole routine was like clockwork and only now that the Alpha’s away does it seem safe to make a getaway that Oliver was sure he should have made a long time ago, before he’d become so reliant on actually needing Slade.

Could he actually survive out there in the forest though?

It was possibly the safer option than staying here for the moment if he wanted to keep the leftover slivers of his dignity intact. Besides, he could always come crawling back once his heat blew over. Right?

He thinks he knows how to navigate his way back to the clearing with the plane. From the times that Slade’s dragged him along to check traps or possibly to just embarrass him and watch Oliver trip and stumble through the unfamiliar forest.

At least he was lucky that Slade had departed him by time the more visibly noticeable symptoms had started to kick in. Anyone who didn’t want to be as ignorant to the signs as he did would quickly have been—still would—able to discern what was up from them. Especially when he’s not sure if Slade actually brought into him not being an Omega either.

The Alpha could find out soon enough though as he looks due for his third heat since arriving on the island, which apparently, unregulated by suppressants, his body doesn’t seem like wanting to go anything more than two months at a time between them. It seemed so long since he had his last, each day a struggle in its own right, that Oliver hadn’t even thought to watch the days for when all hell would potentially break loose on him.

Oliver’s immediately eating dirt though the moment he stumbles out of the fuselage.

He staggers, goes weak in the knees, legs like lead. Make the first couple metres towards the edge of the clearing into the forest and then drops. Without the energy to even try and ease into his fall as all that mental endurance he has built up under the guidance of Yao Fei and Slade, is just being used to prevent himself from wanting to roll over and submit to an Alpha.

Is worth nil in the bodily presence of his heat, taught to him _by_ Alphas. Who obviously wouldn’t have a god damn clue as to what that the former’s like, just thinking they should screw an Omega to put it out of its misery. No! That would not be him, he’d get away. Because while with Yao Fei he was cooped up behind a rock, here, here he can run away. Has to run away though because—

Oliver prevents himself from inhaling again by just dropping his face back into the dirt.

The whole place smells like Alpha. Just Alpha Alpha. The guys like Tommy back in the city, their scent couldn’t even compare to this. This rich, primal, oh-my-god-that’s-an-Alpha scent. _Jesus_ , Slade…

Why hasn’t he ever noticed this before? The way that man smelt? Sure, he knew Slade was a really dominant Alpha, Apex Alpha even. But he hadn’t noticed before now that the older man’s scent practically engulfed the whole area. Distinguished the territory as his own when the smarter play, in the vicinity of Fyer’s men, might have just been to try and remain oblivious.

Obviously the Alpha wasn’t having any of that or just didn’t care as… the whole place, it was just intoxicating. Worse than any form of alcohol or drugs Oliver can remember taking but maybe that’s just because he’s finally been sober for more than twenty-hours at a time.

It’s so bad than he can’t even breathe through his mouth without feeling like he’s still taking the man’s pheromones into his lungs.

 _Breathe…_ Inhale. Exhale.

_Can’t do it!_

Oliver rolls over onto his back feeling his stomach roll and his heart speed up. Wheatear it’s in anxiousness, anticipation, or possibly a combination of both, he’s not sure.

 _It’s too hard,_ it’s all too hard. He’s fisting up piles of dirt and grass with the hand not reaching for his pants, to possibly motivate himself to _keep trying_ or to at least have the effort there showing he tried.

Failed attempt alright… he’s not making the forest.

He’ll just… Oliver blinks his eyes looking up at the stars coming into view overhead. Yeah, he’ll just stay here. At least for now. Slade shouldn’t be coming back anytime soon so why shouldn’t Oliver just enjoy himself when he’s not around? _Yeah_ , he’ll do that. He’s not sure if he’s ever felt this way before…

Even though between his thighs is quickly becoming sticky and unpleasant, Oliver’s not sure if he has the energy to want to get himself off though. Especially not when his senses prick up and the Omega lifts his head off the ground to the sound of heavy footfalls. _Oh whatever…_ And then he relaxes his neck back down into the dirt, spread-eagle and just attempting to blink away the on-setting haze in his mind.

Once, twice, thrice—oh wait, that’s new.

Oliver stops for a moment, vision obscured, not seeing the sky anymore and then flips back over onto his stomach to try and see what’s up. He has to pick his chin up out of the dirt in order to do so but when he does he can feel his insides freeze up and the moment his muscles quickly spasm.

Slade’s standing there, looking way taller than Oliver is sure he actually is. His eyes are dark and he can’t be sure what to interpret from the Alpha’s gaze, face an almost unreadable mask. The bird’s slung over his shoulder are almost instantly dropped though and Oliver wishes he had the energy and spine to run at this point. As this right now, was when he really needed to.

He doesn’t though, he just…

“Hi…”


End file.
